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Mass storage tops sales
US firm gets UK cash for 'Silicon Glen' plant
NatSemi plans Israeli CMOS plant
UK venture capital will fund start-up Californian firm Integrated Power Semiconductors (IPS). The company will set up in Livingston, UK, Scotland's 'Silicon Glen'. Investors in Industry is injecting £4.5M. Contributors include the Scottish Development Agency and the UK National Coal Board pension fund. IPS will get a further £4.2M in UK government grants. IPS will design and make power control ICs. It will also have 'a novel marketing and sales approach toward providing custom and semicustom products', says the firm. The founding team consists of nine Californian semiconductor professionals. At the head is former international marketing director of Silicon General, Dave Wood. The sales director will be Nat Semi's Robert Frostholm and design engineering chief will be Norman Matzen, formerly in charge of IC development at power supply maker Astec. Building is starting about now. It will take 18 months and the factory is expected to employ 500 people.
National Semiconductor will build a $55M CMOS wafer plant in Migdal Hamek, Israel. The factory should be ready next year and will employ 150. 'We chose Israel because of the availability of well-trained and experienced engineering talent, necessary to cope with complex design and production', said Nat Semi president, Charles E Sporck. 'Israel will be geared towards the design and support
of our microprocessor family of products, the 16000 series.' Nat Semi set up a microprocessor design and development centre in Herzlia, Israel, in 1978. The centre did much of the work for the 16000 family 'and the wafer process technology allows complete product development in Israel', said Nat Semi's microprocessor group vice-president, Richard L Sanquini.
Robots 'will use gyroscopes for guidance' A new generation of robots will be able to move around using gyroscopic guidance. Cheap plastic gyroscopes could be used in cars for automatic navigation. US market researchers I RD also predict that tomorrow's industrial robot will 'go almost anywhere and do almost anything a human worker does'. Such robots will use computer vision and collision avoidance electronics. Car makers now working on navigation systems include General Motors,
Ford, Toyota and Honda. A gyroscopic system has been fully developed by Honda and is 'close to production'. Errors progressively build up during the operation of a gyroscope-based inertial guidance system. Honda's answer is to update the gyroscope every now and again using satellite data. The I RD report costs $1650 and is available from IRD, 30 High Street, Norwalk, CT 06851, USA. Tel: (203) 866 6914. Telex: 643452.
Mass storage tops sales Mass storage devices are leading the 65% a year growth of peripherals sales. The total market will pass $14000M by 1988 says market research firm CSI. Fastest growing areas are in flexible and hard disc drives smaller than 5¼-in. These are forecast to grow at 110% and 125% a year respectively. Demand for business equipment will push 5¼-in hard disc sales ahead faster than sales of their floppy counterparts. 15M mass storage units will be shipped in 1988. Thin-film media will gain widespread use once current supply problems are overcome. On modem sales, there will be a shift towards integral devices to reduce standalone sales from 90% of the market to less than 45% by 1988. (CSI, 4340 Stevens Creek Bird, Suite 275, San Jose, CA 95129, USA. Tel: (408) 249 7550)
vol 8 no 5 june 1984
Texas Instruments will spend £ I OM ($15M) in the UK over the next two years. The cash will be used to expand semiconductor production in Plymouth. 'Expenditure will mainly be on highly-automated production equipment', said a spokesman for the company. 'We are working around the clock from Monday to Friday. Now we shall extend that to the full seven day week.' The Plymouth plant will more than double Tl's current UK output of linear ICs for telecommunications.
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NatSemi plans Israeli CMOS plant
UK venture capital will fund start-up Californian firm Integrated Power Semiconductors (IPS). The company will set up in Livingston, UK, Scotland's 'Silicon Glen'. Investors in Industry is injecting £4.5M. Contributors include the Scottish Development Agency and the UK National Coal Board pension fund. IPS will get a further £4.2M in UK government grants. IPS will design and make power control ICs. It will also have 'a novel marketing and sales approach toward providing custom and semicustom products', says the firm. The founding team consists of nine Californian semiconductor professionals. At the head is former international marketing director of Silicon General, Dave Wood. The sales director will be Nat Semi's Robert Frostholm and design engineering chief will be Norman Matzen, formerly in charge of IC development at power supply maker Astec. Building is starting about now. It will take 18 months and the factory is expected to employ 500 people.
National Semiconductor will build a $55M CMOS wafer plant in Migdal Hamek, Israel. The factory should be ready next year and will employ 150. 'We chose Israel because of the availability of well-trained and experienced engineering talent, necessary to cope with complex design and production', said Nat Semi president, Charles E Sporck. 'Israel will be geared towards the design and support
of our microprocessor family of products, the 16000 series.' Nat Semi set up a microprocessor design and development centre in Herzlia, Israel, in 1978. The centre did much of the work for the 16000 family 'and the wafer process technology allows complete product development in Israel', said Nat Semi's microprocessor group vice-president, Richard L Sanquini.
Robots 'will use gyroscopes for guidance' A new generation of robots will be able to move around using gyroscopic guidance. Cheap plastic gyroscopes could be used in cars for automatic navigation. US market researchers I RD also predict that tomorrow's industrial robot will 'go almost anywhere and do almost anything a human worker does'. Such robots will use computer vision and collision avoidance electronics. Car makers now working on navigation systems include General Motors,
Ford, Toyota and Honda. A gyroscopic system has been fully developed by Honda and is 'close to production'. Errors progressively build up during the operation of a gyroscope-based inertial guidance system. Honda's answer is to update the gyroscope every now and again using satellite data. The I RD report costs $1650 and is available from IRD, 30 High Street, Norwalk, CT 06851, USA. Tel: (203) 866 6914. Telex: 643452.
Mass storage tops sales Mass storage devices are leading the 65% a year growth of peripherals sales. The total market will pass $14000M by 1988 says market research firm CSI. Fastest growing areas are in flexible and hard disc drives smaller than 5¼-in. These are forecast to grow at 110% and 125% a year respectively. Demand for business equipment will push 5¼-in hard disc sales ahead faster than sales of their floppy counterparts. 15M mass storage units will be shipped in 1988. Thin-film media will gain widespread use once current supply problems are overcome. On modem sales, there will be a shift towards integral devices to reduce standalone sales from 90% of the market to less than 45% by 1988. (CSI, 4340 Stevens Creek Bird, Suite 275, San Jose, CA 95129, USA. Tel: (408) 249 7550)
vol 8 no 5 june 1984
Texas Instruments will spend £ I OM ($15M) in the UK over the next two years. The cash will be used to expand semiconductor production in Plymouth. 'Expenditure will mainly be on highly-automated production equipment', said a spokesman for the company. 'We are working around the clock from Monday to Friday. Now we shall extend that to the full seven day week.' The Plymouth plant will more than double Tl's current UK output of linear ICs for telecommunications.
269